More Shakespeare's Sonnets
by Fox Trot 9
Summary: A continuation of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Follow William Shakespeare, as he tries to find true love in a myriad of misadventures. Enjoy! And REVIEW!  Update: Sonnets 21 to 25.
1. Invocation

Disclaimer: I own nothing from Shakespeare. Damn!

(Now revised! Thanks Aercalima & prone2dementia for pointing things out!)

Invocation.

1.

Scorn not the sonnet, even when it's old;  
Scorn not its rhyme, even when it's brittle;  
Scorn not its meaning, even when it's cold;  
And scorn not its worth, ev'n when there's little.  
And don't fear the sonnet, ev'n when it's hard;  
Do not fear its rhyme, even when it slows;  
Don't fear its meaning, ev'n when it's froward;  
And don't fear it's worth, even when it blows.  
One should not have scorn or fear for such things,  
Whose rhyme makes lovely music out of words,  
Whose meaning tells much insight as it sings,  
Whose worth's not found in its collective words,  
But is found deep within your very soul,  
Where every muse out there has its control.

2.

The sonnet is such a beautiful thing,  
Though the pains to achieve it are a-plenty,  
Where you focus on all those words that bring  
It rhyme and meter and force of brevity.  
Thus, the sonnet is a difficult form,  
A form that has subdued so many bards,  
A form that hazes you with every thorn  
Of brain-bashing descriptions and regards.  
But a sonnet is never a sonnet  
Without that brooding struggle from word-one,  
As much as a poet's not a poet  
Without that iron will to overcome:  
For sonnets are ardent labors of love  
That all great poets to themselves must prove.

3.

Sonnet-writing's a lonesome endeavor,  
Just you and your mind, just you and your rhymes,  
Just you on the chair and the pen in your  
Hand, as you think up invisible lines.  
And writing a sonnet takes so much time,  
That you more than posses a saint's composure  
To wait for words that come one at a time,  
Waiting to the edge of doom's promised pleasure.  
But true bards in this long lonely journey  
Of thought, who shun all outside worldly things,  
Have found a new world of self-mastery,  
Where you become that which everything brings.  
Thus, true poets become their own creators,  
A little of God in us that empowers.

4.

Though sonnets are daunting tasks for would-be  
Poets (like you or me) who grasp in vain  
For all those thoughts that evade and scurry,  
Causing every kind of torment and pain –  
Though all this will happen, keep this in mind:  
That those who excelled in this mastery,  
Those brilliant poets of their age and kind  
(Dante and Petrarch, Wyatt and Surrey,  
Chapman and Milton, Donne, Shelley and Keats,  
Wordsworth and Millay, Sidney and Spencer,  
Frost, Brooke and Owen, Rossetti and Yeats), *  
They were once bad before they got better,  
Composing failures to better their skill,  
Braving their torments by sheer force of will.

[* Dante...Yeats = a few famous sonneteers. See mentioned sonneteers on Wikepedia.]

5.

Indeed, we poets stand on the shoulders  
Of the poets that wrote before our time;  
But those same poets stand on the shoulders  
Of the poet's poet, both yours and mine:  
The one who penned the madness of Hamlet  
And Macbeth, who planned out the self-murder  
Of young Romeo and his Juliet  
And of Cleopatra and her lover,  
And who wrote those Sonnets that we hold dear,  
That genius from Stratford-upon-Avon,  
The one and the only _William Shakespeare _–  
Forget the muses from Mount Helicon! *  
To that bard I dedicate these humble lines,  
That I may continue his work through my rhymes.

[* Mount Helicon = a mountain sacred to the Muses. See Mount Helicon on Wikipedia.]

A/N: There you have it; let me know what you think in your review(s). And be as HONEST as you can, 'cause I've worked my ass off writing these. Please...pretty please! Pretty-freaking-please review; I'm getting desperate here. I promise it'll get better, just please let me know what you think, even if you flame this and me to Hell!


	2. Sonnets 1 to 5

Disclaimer: I own nothing from Shakespeare.

(Now revised! Thanks Blissfulnightmare's True Form for pointing things out!)

Sonnets.

1.

I am but a sonnet-writing shadow  
With no name for my love to know me by;  
For what's love to me but some cruel widow  
That's left me after feigning me goodbye?  
I'd rather be that anonymous shade  
And lie in wait observing my sweet lass;  
For who am I that rushed too much and made  
That prize think me much like a donkey's ass?  
I wanted her bit by bit in friendship  
Before I got her more and more in love;  
For what's left of love that starts its courtship  
In flaming lust but cold coals that remove?  
For the wise say love's friendship set a-flame,  
Not some careless thing the young call a game!

2.

O! If I only had such wise counsel,  
Or better yet a Guide to let me know  
Th' errors of my choice, then I would do well  
To prevent all the pain that grieves me now;  
And though I have aged four years past two score, *  
An age that begets wisdom in all things,  
I'm still that same untutored youth, no more  
Than an old child at the grace of love's stings;  
For there is no love-forgetting potion,  
No nepenthe or balm of Gilead **  
For losing his love to her hand's motion  
That I once held – held _once_ but never had:  
Had not that _wench _conceited me to this,  
I might have loved and lived in sweetest bliss.

[* Score = twenty; so "four years past two score" = forty-four years.]

[** Nepenthe = a drink of forgetfulness; Balm in Gilead = a balm said to heal all wounds.]

3.

Thou think'st – for thou art fair but ignorant –  
That in this game of love thou art the best?  
Thou think'st thyself some goddess-faced gallant  
Who possesses his love at thy behest?  
O contraire, thou heartless ungainly thing!  
For thou hast not experience enough  
To hold off my master from defecting  
For a truer love like me; all that stuff  
Thou call'st thy woes hold not a candle's flame  
To the raging furnace found in these hot lines.  
I'm the better poet in Love's sweet game;  
Just try to outwit me with thy weak designs!  
I'm the bard of Stratford-upon-Avon;  
Gape at my sugared verses and be gone!

4.

Be gone from the ire of my sight, I say!  
If thou art sly enough to take from me  
The former master of my passion's sway,  
And betray th' affection I held for thee:  
Then hurry to that chase! Hurry before  
I send a thousand rhymes of war to take  
Back the boy thou hast made thy slave and whore,  
Who fell too soon for thine advances fake.  
Then shall I have thee at thy most grievous pain,  
When I regain his love, not meant for thee;  
For I'll take him away to return again  
The pain that thy cruel lies hath done to me!  
Hurry, wench; look at me no more as thine,  
But rival for his honor, which is mine!

5.

Thou gentle cheater, who once held my love near,  
Who once heard my counsels and my praises,  
Who once was the apple of mine eyes queer,  
Who once stole my heart and all my phrases  
All the times I'm with thee: for thee, O cheat,  
I will forswear my love in all its forms;  
No longer we be friends, nor even meet  
To talk of beauty or love; no more storms  
For thy love's pilgrimage I hold for thee;  
No more heart-felt counsels for the traitor  
That thou art; and no more soft rhymes from me,  
Nor soft thoughts from thy reprovéd suitor:  
For when my mistress wooed thee to steal thy heart,  
Thou gav'st it to her and tore my love apart!

A/N: There, I told you it would get better – hopefully. But if you don't don't understand them, please let me know in your review(s); I'd be happy to answer your questions. And be as HONEST as you can. So please read and REVIEW! Please...pretty please! Even if you flame, let me know!


	3. Sonnets 6 to 10

A/N: I put the A/N up here for a reason; Sonnet 9 gets a bit sexy, if you know what I mean. Don't tell me I didn't warn you. That is, IF you let me know what you think in your review(s)! Please, I'm getting desperate, here; please REVIEW!

Disclaimer: I own nothing from Shakespeare.

Sonnets.

6.

O! And off he went after swearing off my  
Dear affection but a foul lie, which hath burned  
Against my heart, to which I whimper and sigh  
The passing of a love to another turned.  
But ev'n when I tell him the truth of my tears,  
Off he runs to his faithless mistress much like  
A son runs to his mother so full of fears,  
And I cannot help but feel the dreaded spike  
Run its fatal length through my love-swooning heart,  
Pinning me to a most horrid form of death,  
Where all hope to preserve his love or new start  
Hath been lost to the last of my mortal breath;  
Thus, I pray my heart of hearts to forswear  
That master-mistress of my passion's wear.

7.

There goes mine only possession on earth,  
And with it goes the sunset's final gleams  
Of twilight ere the stars herald Night's birth;  
And yet the Moon still hides her face, it seems.  
Those milky stars above my head doth hold  
My gaze, but only for a moment's time;  
And even if the Moon did show her bold  
And brilliant face, I would not give a dime.  
For when I swore my lord of love forsworn,  
I did forswear the better half of me;  
And come tomorrow's clear and sunny morn,  
I've small hope to be from this heartache free.  
Perhaps there'll come a new love with dawn's light;  
Till then, I'll be shut up in moonless night.

8.

Long were the lines of the convoy that sailed  
For Helen's face, which launched a thousand ships, *  
And longer were the battles that assailed  
Troy's walls, ere its fall to deceitful lips; **  
And long were the many glories of Rome,  
From its painful founding that Aeneas bore ***  
(After killing his foe in his wife's home)  
To the godlike Caesar that we all adore. ****  
I know all these things were long in their time,  
But longer than these, it seemeth to me,  
Is this endless and sleepless night of crime  
That torments me with love's sweet memory!  
For love's sweet face that assails me o'er and o'er  
Belongs to a traitor – O! When be night o'er?

[* Helen = a queen during the Trojan War. See Homer's _Iliad_ on Wikipedia.]

[** Troy's walls = the city that fell for Odysseus' Trojan Horse. See Homer's _Odyssey_ on Wikipedia.]

[*** Aeneas = a Trojan hero that founded Rome. See Virgil's _Aeneid_ on Wikipedia.]

[**** Caesar = a Roman general & statesman. See Julius Caesar on Wikipedia.]

9.

Sometimes too strong the urge to love groweth,  
Whenever I think of love's handsome front,  
Featured in a traitor's face that soweth  
The seeds of my ruin with one affront;  
And oftentimes too strong th' urge to abuse  
That love befalls me, when in burning lust  
I fall a-dotting for his beauty's use,  
Despite my vow to never break that trust.  
The number of sins my sick-thoughted self  
Hath sinned are too many when my thoughts drift;  
Damn that sharp wit who penned his clever elf  
(Though I damn myself) to supply such thrift!  
Naughty Puck, release me from this damn spell: *  
I must start anew and escape this hell!

[* Puck = a mischievous fairy. See Shakespeare's _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ on Wikipedia.]

10.

I, sick with these scandalous thoughts of sin  
And weary at the thumping of my heart,  
Now take repose under the black welkin *  
By the fount of my former youth's depart;  
The waters of this old fount no longer gush  
But lie still and flat on this silent night;  
And on its mirrored surface, I feel the rush  
Of expectation at its promised sight.  
Look at me now: look at the lines that line  
Th' aging face of an old and foolish swain;  
Look at those weary eyes that seem to pine  
Away at the memory of love's pain.  
While my years alive won't outlast my fame,  
Deathless be Cupid's bitter sting of shame.

[* Welkin = an archaic word for sky.]

A/N: Again, PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK! PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU! ( T_T )


	4. Sonnets 11 to 15

Disclaimer: I own nothing from Shakespeare.

Sonnets.

11.

They say that Death reaps most his ghastly crop,  
When Dawn delays her daily morning rise,  
And just before Night's sable robes doth drop,  
Cruel fear of death binds us to our demise;  
And worser _still_, when his grim sickle swings  
For lovers doomed by Fate's foul-dealing hand,  
These poor souls desire what that bad end brings:  
The promise of love's bliss, though they be damned!  
This masked damnation holds me in dismay;  
O! If I only had half the blindness  
Of two love-sick teens from my famous play, *  
I won't have to suffer from this madness.  
Alack! I've not the courage for that end;  
I'm just a writer gifted at pretend.

[* Of...play = Romeo & Juliet. See Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_ on Wikipedia.]

12.

Pretend – to make believe that which is not,  
To fake convincing acts, perchance to dream;  
Ah, to dream, to seek out that perfect lot  
In the slumbers of one's noblest esteem.  
Should all my works confirm me in this fact,  
Then I be the greatest of pretenders,  
Whose stage should be a vast and worldly tract, *  
Where I am crowned: Player of All Players.  
Yet pretending can only go so far;  
I can't pretend my love to be the love  
That he once was, nor can I wish a star  
To make his infidelity improve.  
I know this now more than I e'er wanted;  
My life's not the perfect role God granted.

[* Whose...tract = Jaques' monologue. See Shakespeare's _As You Like It_ on Wikipedia.]

13.

But despite these pains of mine existence,  
Whose sweet dreams are but imagination,  
I cannot explain this strange resistance  
To all th' arrows of mine indignation.  
As warm as April breeze against the skin,  
It uplifts the heart and mends these fraying nerves;  
And sweet to taste as nectar's nearest kin,  
It tempts none to drink, save for those it reserves.  
Wherefrom doth this long-lost nepenthe come?  
Wherefore doth this not die a dreamer's fail?  
It cometh from my dreams, though it be some;  
And nothing, not ev'n Death, can it derail.  
It hath four letters all mortals use to cope;  
And those letters, strung together, spell out Hope.

14.

How often do bards beg for sleep to come?  
They dedicate their numbers to her name  
In vain hopes to thwart that stalking doom from  
Snatching them awake; yet they end the same:  
Ah, how these bards do waste on empty hopes!  
They call themselves the gallants that they're not,  
Breaking their bootless oaths to their elopes,  
And, in fear, forswearing the prize once sought;  
But I, the loyal vassal of his thrall,  
Would pursue his love to the sleep of death;  
Despite mine own forswears, I'd sooner fall  
And die than waste, in begging Sleep, my breath.  
So let my body fail for his love's sake,  
That in my dreams, I will of he partake.

15.

With voiceless voices that no god hath wrought,  
Birds sing the rise of an un-brilliant dawn,  
A face of light no treasure to be sought,  
But still a treasure to this weary pawn.  
Are these fields the Meadows of Asphodel? *  
Am I judged to live this neutrality,  
Where spirits their day-to-day lives doth dwell?  
Am I to drink of th' waters of Lethe? **  
O no! To drink the drink that makes all ghosts  
Forget all the things of their former world;  
No! To leave love's memory to the hosts  
That hath me, to this void existence, hurled!  
Take me to heaven or take me to hell;  
Long lives my love in my mind, I'll live well!

[* Meadows of Asphodel = a form of limbo in Greek myth. See Asphodel Meadows on Wikipedia.]

[** Lethe = a river of forgetfulness. See Lethe on Wikipedia.]

A/N: Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please REVIEW! I'M BEGGING YOU! ( T_T ) ( T_T )


	5. Sonnets 16 to 20

A/N: Thank you so much for all your reviews; they mean so much to me. Your encouragement has stoked the fires of my muse! God bless all of you!

Disclaimer: I own nothing from Shakespeare.

Sonnets.

16.

To the bright blesséd day mine eyes doth ope, *  
And behold: that nightmare had come to naught;  
My fears thus allayed, I return to hope,  
The hope his wandering heart shall be caught;  
And like bards who pray for their sweet repose,  
As if to pray to the end of Death's hour,  
I pray the morning to grant me that rose  
But not have its scent in my nose to sour.  
For sweet is my love when love he returns,  
And sour is love when my love he denies,  
And acrid is love when all of me burns  
To make him see love and see where it lies:  
For he is th' object of my heart's desire,  
And his love the spark of my Muse's fire.

[* Ope = an archaic word for open.]

17.

As long as I've eyes to see, though blurry  
They be by passage of many a year,  
I'll commit to my rhymes all the fury  
That rages in me for love to appear.  
And long as I breathe and give breath to rhyme,  
Though the years of my life are now numbered,  
I'll commit to paper and to all time  
The love that's lost but sweetly remembered.  
So, Muse, I implore thee; vouchsafe thine aid  
For me to pen down so sad a decline,  
Where I be the swain that's much too afraid  
To let his love go and others divine,  
And she be his wife to have and to hold,  
And he be her husband, so young but bold.

18.

Yes, reader, this is my very last play,  
An enormous monologue to love's ache,  
A cross that I bear to this very day  
As I pen this for my sanity's sake.  
And though I'm one player without a stage  
(Nor with the Queen's Men to play out this show), *  
What need is there to have others engage  
But you and I? Ah, yes, that we both know.  
So let me sit and tell you the story,  
Which I do swear on my life to be true;  
It starts on the morning, when my sorry  
Self left that weary fountain to pursue  
His love and his hatred of me remove:  
O! What a pain that adventure did prove!

[* Queen's Men = a group of actors for Queen Elizabeth. See Queen's Men on Wikipedia.]

19.

So towards his house I go to kowtow *  
At his feet – ah! And yet I know not where  
He lives, for rule has it that men not know  
Another man's house; so where else? Ah, there!  
Borough High Street near the old Tabard Inn; **  
Borough High Street, where I first met my lord, ***  
After downing a swig amidst the din  
Of drinking fellows and feeling quite bored.  
I remember, walking out on that lane,  
The first time I saw so handsome a face;  
Forsooth, I thought him once a girl insane, ****  
For I found myself blushing at his lace.  
But cross-dressing girl or not, I wooed him  
And found, to my distress, my judgment dim!

[* Kowtow = to kneel.]

[** Tabard Inn = an old inn in Southwark. See The Tabard on Wikipedia.]

[*** Borough High Street = an old street in Southwark. See Borough High Street on Wikipedia.]

[**** Forsooth = an archaic word for indeed.]

20.

Ah, remembrance so shameful yet so sweet;  
How could I resist to try out my words  
On one so fair upon that moonlit street,  
Though that be an absurd of all absurds?  
How could I resist an arm 'round his waist,  
Though that's a blasphemy of blasphemies?  
And how could I resist a fleeting taste,  
Though kisses betwixt men are infamies?  
Should men see these thoughts, they'd call them heinous  
To the sight of man, a disdainful sin;  
Yet I'd much rather be that infamous  
Don Juan, if sin could afford my heart's kin. *  
Thus, on this street I now await my fate  
And hope 'gainst hope my chance is not too late.

[* Don Juan = an infamous rake in Spanish & Italian legend. See Don Juan on Wikipedia.]

A/N: As you might have guessed, this is a slash story; Shakespeare did it, so don't be too scandalized. Anyway, please REVIEW! I'll give you a cookie!


	6. Sonnets 21 to 25

Disclaimer: I own nothing from Shakespeare.

Sonnets.

21.

I wait and wait and wait, till long waiting  
Causes pain in my feet, on which I stand;  
Weary at this task, I stand debating:  
Should I go, or stand firm for his command?  
I choose neither but make a consensus;  
To the Tabard I go for refreshment,  
But keeping eyes, ears and all my senses  
On the street to see if he'd come or went.  
And so I have my swigs and victuals,  
Eating out of duty to my body's needs,  
While I think of those individuals  
That figured in my plays and all of their deeds.  
In writing all those characters, I've more  
Than played each one: I _lived_ their roles before.

22.

A few swigs later, though I know not when,  
I hear commotion, though I care not why;  
I ignore all this, till right there and then,  
Methinks I saw seven fellows drop by.  
Ere I knew it, they knocked me off my seat  
(From which my drunken self could hardly move  
And inch upon two tipsy-laden feet)  
And beat me senseless – O! Pray God, reprove!  
O! I would have smote their stinking arses, *  
Bit off their thumbs, squashed their cankered livers,  
And made them a bunch of clowning farces,  
Had I not been drunk! O pickle-shovers!  
O vile arse-holes, O dastardly fellows!  
Spare this weary man from thy painful blows!

[* Arse = British word for ass.]

23.

Yet they beat me _still_ with all the license  
Of their senseless spite, kicking and stomping  
At a weary drunkard with no defense –  
Hitting me all over without stopping;  
And when they did, when beating all but ceased,  
Off the floor and out the door to the street  
They threw me, ere the beating they increased  
Upon my bruiséd frame with booted feet.  
But when they ceased and the beating ended,  
These savage men said as one allegiance:  
'For that mistress thou hast most offended,  
We have exacted her rightful vengeance!'  
Thus, they leave me in all my pains engrossed;  
Now I know not to have that woman crossed.

24.

My pains notwithstanding, I get me up  
Upon unsteady tipsy-laden feet  
And stagger back into the inn, to sup  
My remaining meal – not an easy feat;  
For now I taste my blood with every gulp,  
While others look astounded at mine ease;  
They'd ne'er seen a man beaten to a pulp,  
Who shook it off as if it were a tease.  
And when I paid the inn my ration's due,  
I stagger to that fount to heal my pains;  
But when I saw myself bruised black and blue,  
I dash the sight, for th' agony remains:  
They say Time heals the body's injuries;  
But how can he wash off love's miseries?

25.

Time heals not but only fades out our wounds,  
As our memories fade 'neath his eraser,  
That he, by many a passing year, hounds  
Us to our ends, where death be his dispenser;  
Time is a treacherous doctor, who takes  
Away our smarts at th' expense of our hours;  
And in wasting precious hours, he ev'n rakes  
Away th' will to live, though he says it's ours.  
O father Time, thou art a hypocrite,  
A liar and a most cruel assassin;  
For with thy gentle lashings, thou think'st fit  
To have me brutalized inside that inn!  
Had I not spent _time_ there, I'd have ne'er met  
Those men – O! Damn thee for that fell regret!

A/N: I bet you didn't expect this, did you? It's only gonna get worse for Will, trust me. Let me know what you think; I'd like to see your opinions on the story so far.


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